Chapter 8

'The Common Boy'

'War training'

I woke up early the next morning, Matilda was curled up next to me. I slid out of the bed attempting not to wake her, she stirred as I stepped away from the bed, I whispered, "Go back to sleep." She mumbled something then curled up in the warm spot I had left behind. I snuck out of the cabin and looked around, everyone was asleep still except for the night watch who was staring at the forest from the wall. The sun was just rising over the east wall coting the fort in a golden cloak.

I walked to the medic tent and summoned forth my inner power, I took on the form of the silver knight and let my powers flow into the injured people as I walked by, by the time I got to the back of the tent where Lord Wyldon and the Scanra Prisoner who saved Wyldon's life where the entire tent was covered in the black aura of my power.

I stopped at them and felt that this would take much more energy, I slowly started pumping energy into them at extreme levels healing old wounds and aches. The others started waking up and looking around, some of them got up and started to head out. I kept on healing the two in extreme care. I felt something shaking me, I opened my eyes and stopped the flow of magic, Numair was standing in front of me he shouted, "Are you crazy that kind of magic can kill you, and it probably gave away our position to the king's mages."

I sighed and said, "This kind of magic won't kill me, and the king will not be able to find this place by any means, there is a shield of over 1 mile diameter circle around us at all times. Only those that I choose may even enter that shield, the rest teleport to the opposite end of the shield, like the land that is here wasn't."

Numair said, "Alright, but warn me before you start that kind of magic, it's scary. And they are well past healed." I looked at the men he indicated to and he was right, I stood up and wobbled a little and my stomach rumbled, Numair helped stabilize me and said, "Let's get you an early breakfast," I nodded and he lead me to the dining hall. The sun was shining and a fourth of the way across the sky, 7 in the morning I had been in there for 3 hours.

When we entered the dining hall there were already a few people in there, He sat me down next to w\a sleepy Matilda and went to get me some food. She looked at me and asked, "What were you doing? I woke up and you were gone?" I sighed and whispered into here ear, "You know what I was doing," She heard the strain in my voice and said, "don't push yourself so hard please." I nodded and Numair came and placed my food in front of me, he didn't speak but left, probably returning to bed.

I ate my food and slowly regained my strength, by the time Wyldon had woke I was at roughly half my strength. Lord Wyldon stormed into the cabin and shouted, "who is this man that healed me!?" I stood up and said, "I did" he looked at me and his rage dissipated and sighed and said, "Has anyone ever told you not to heal that much?"

I said, "I'm sorry, I got caught up in the magic, I almost started putting my life force into it, You were that injured," He nodded and stared to walk out of the cabin when I asked, "Will I be able to train with the adults?"

He turned around and said, "If you want training then join the other children and train with Kel." I said, "I want to become a knight, and to do that I must train with a training master, for now that is you." He asked, "How old are you?" "I turn nine next month" I responded

He sighed and said, "You may train with use, but you will have to keep up, I won't expect any less from you than anyone else I'm teaching. And you will have to start studying with the others," Numair said, "I'll teach him what he needs to know." Lord Wyldon laughed and said, "Yes you will, now be ready in an hour." I nodded and he left.

An hour later I stood in a group with a pretty much every adult in the fort practicing the stances with a staff, we did this for an hour then paired us up to practice the stances we had just learned, I was told to practice with a 15 year old named Francis, he was only five inches taller than me, so it was fine, but his thrusts were harder than they should have been, he knew me as a mage and attacked like I was his greatest enemy, So I did the same. We pushed each other so hard that we were starting to leave the rest of the group.

There were so many people that they didn't notice our absence, he started using a strange pattern dance, probably learned from Kel. I deflected all his strikes then did a pattern dance of my own. I don't know where it came from but I struck first low then high, I made a quick thrust forward and then before hitting him I spun around and swung down hard on his left side, he couldn't block in time and was hit. He fell to one knee and said, "Alright you win," Lord Wyldon came up to us and said to me, "That was a very old pattern dance, once used by our ancestors, but was unteachable after many years, would you be willing to teach it to us?"

I looked up at him and asked, "YOU want ME to teach YOU something?" He smiled and said, "It would be an honor." I nodded, he led me to the front of the line and I went through the motions of the dance slowly, everyone, even the young children (between five and six) practiced this pattern dance, I went through that one and two others for the next eight hours, most could do t slowly but the faster they went the more errors they made, Lord Wyldon said, "Tomorrow we will return to the basics, when everyone has mastered the basics then we shall retry these new patterns." Everyone nodded and headed to the dining hall for a late lunch.

Okay there was chapter eight, I hope you enjoyed it, and one thing, would any of my viewers be willing to be my editor, my previous one has stopped contacting my and I need some help making sure I didn't leave too many errors. Please and thank you.